WRITING AUTHORITY IN LATE MEDIEVAL ... - Cornell University

The argument indicts Falkenberg’s libelous claims about the Polish king, to be sure, but it also
indicts the use of an individual’s faith to justify a crusade. Rocha reasons that even if the Polish
king’s infidelity has “notoria” ‘notoriety,’ it is improper to justify an act of war based upon the
representation of his infidelity alone. This is because Christian princes may licitly rise against
anyone by claiming that he is misrepresenting God and that therefore he has no real lordship.
Rocha follows Vladimiri quite closely in saying that Hostiensis’s logic would create a
place in which Christians may not be bound by law. Allowing an attack on infidelity based in the
name of Christ allows other Christian princes to arise “contra quemcumque” ‘against whomever’
by the mere act of “dicendo ipsum inimicum esse fidei christiane” ‘of saying that person is an
enemy of the Christian faith.’ Basing the rightness, the authority, of an action on its
representation—in a direct echo of Vladimiri’s argument—“est absurdum” ‘is absurd’ because it
creates a state in which illegal acts may be legal. Just like Hostiensis, Falkenberg’s argument
introduces a state of illegality because being an “inimicum fidei” ‘enemy of the faith’ does not
grant a human protection under the law. In short, Falkenberg’s arguments make law an
ontological, subjective space and so “absurdly” create a place where law would not be law.
7. Of Slaves and Metaphors: Papal Authority Reconsidered
Vladimiri’s success in equating Hostiensis’s logic with Wyclif’s heresy helped shape
Eugene IV’s condemnation of slave practices in the Canary Islands. This is evident in the
rhetoric of Eugene’s letters regarding the mission of the Canaries. For example, the Incipit to his
Regimini gregis justifies the Church’s introduction of the “meccanicas artes et alios modos
vivendis” ‘mechanical arts and other modes of life’ to the Islands not as an attempt to further the
Christian “cultus” but to fulfill the charity and care owed to all of the sheep of the Lord’s flock:
Eugenius, etc. Universis christifidelibus presentes litteras, inspecturis, salutem. Etc. Regimini
gregis dominici, divina disponente clementia, presidentes, curis assiduis angimur et continua
meditatione pulsamur ut ad ea, per que nedum ipsius gregis sane oves custodiri, sed etiam morbide
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